Vaginas vs. The Vatican: New Hampshire GOP Says No Employers Have to Pay for Contraception

The New Hampshire GOP is just the latest in the growing list of Republican state parties that has hit freak-out mode over the battle between vaginas and the Vatican. Just this week vaginas scored big as the Virginia legislature began backpedaling on its state-sanctioned rape bill.

And a couple weeks ago, after the Vatican attacked President Obama for attempting to cover vaginas even when vaginas work for religious hospitals and universities, vaginas scored again by having a “man open” in the insurance companies who would cover them and pay for their protection when the religious people wouldn’t.

Needless to say, the Vatican and their fan base is peee-eeeeved now. Not realizing that they had also scored, and that this was actually a win-win situation, the Vatican and their GOP supporters kicked it up a few notches, backtracking on a New Hampshire law that Republicans themselves voted into existence back in 2000.

So what’s the rhetoric this time?

“The Obama administration is trying to divide this country and to divide women against Catholics,” state House Speaker William O’Brien said. “The amendment before you, however, is a way of guaranteeing religious freedom by ensuring that we are not forcing employers to purchase health care coverage that violates their belief.”

The New Hampshire Republicans and the Catholic Diocese of Manchester want to change a 12-year-old state law that requires contraceptive coverage under insurers’ prescription drug policies so that ANY employer who feels that contraception violates their belief doesn’t have to cover it. By the way, this has nothing to do with Obamacare, Romneycare, etc. This is insurance as we currently know it. Free market insurance.

The law was passed in 2000 by a Republican legislature and signed by a Democratic governor and at the time nobody seemed to see it as a blow against religious liberty.

“There was no discussion whatsoever — I even went back and looked at the history from the bill,” said Democratic State Rep. Terie Norelli, who co-sponsored the law. “There was not one comment about religious freedoms.”

Well, Ms. Norelli, the Vatican has an explanation. “I wasn’t here back in 1999,” said Diane Murphy Quinlan, Chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester, “and we didn’t have a full-time lobbyist in the Legislature. It’s possible that it was missed.”

Really, Diane? Really? The Roman Catholic Church has had a fulltime lobbyist since St. Peter. You guys don’t miss a thing.

Nevertheless, George Harne, president of The College of Saint Mary Magdalen claims he was unaware of the law until now, “We are part of a group plan that forces us to do things that are against our Catholic principles. If we had not found it now, we would have eventually discovered the problem and sought to correct it.”

Well, that’s a great argument. I also remember that the Vatican was against the Iraq war. Just War Theory, anyone? Why did you continue to pay taxes that you knew would fund a war that you objected to on religious grounds? Where was your religious freedom argument then? Convenient.

Deborah Brancheau is the Managing Editor of RestoringTruthiness.org, a political comedy website inspired by the political satire of Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Deborah's background is a smörgåsbord of experience. With a bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and Theatre and a Minor in Cinema/Television, and a Master's Degree in Communication from the University of Southern California, Deborah took her heavily student-loan-funded education and became a sports-writing, high-school-teaching, graphic-designing, university-professing, broke-bum bastard. When that didn't work out too well, she refunneled her expertise into this new venture, RestoringTruthiness.org.